For many years, Brian K. Vaughan has become dazzling us and making our heads spin along with his wordsmithing and storytelling on thousands of comics with the last decade possibly even. Books like Y: THE LAST MAN, EX MACHINA and the initial operated with RUNAWAYS would be the stuff that comic strip readers’ dreams are created from. Alas, since devastating finale of EX MACHINA, he took some well-deserved time away, however, if he announced a brand new creator-owned series for Image Comics that’s apparently likely to be “STAR WARS meets ROMEO AND JULIET meets GAME OF THRONES”, people’s heads begun to explode with anticipation. But will it live up towards the inevitable hype surrounding a work by Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples?

Short answer: Abso-freakin’-loutely.

SAGA would be the type of space opera that only someone like Vaughan could do, and do with enough smarts, fun, emotion, action and surprises and keep the audience wrapped around his finger. It’s the story of Marko and Alana, some star-cross’d lovers from different sides of warring planets. Alana is produced by the planet Landfall, the place of great technological advancement, along with their planet is at constant conflict with all the magic-wielders of this planet’s moon Wreath, where Marko lives in. Marko was captured following a battle with Landfall where he threw down his arms as he is a self-proclaimed conscientious objector, and that he was imprisoned, where Alana, who has been also somewhat disgraced in the military service, is his prison guard. Fast-forward a few months, and Alana is pregnancy to their child, Hazel, the exact narrator from the series. The very beginning on the series is focused on her actually becoming pregnant, and it is hilarious and exquisite and suspenseful because they are being pursued from each party of this galaxy-wide conflict. In the midst of their pursuit, where these are in search of an legendary (and maybe fictional) Rocketship Forest in order that they might get off the entire world with their newborn baby, we’re introduced to all kinds of new, strange, frightening and wonderfully rich characters. We meet Prince Robot IV, a humanoid being in doing what appears to be an old-fashioned TV set to get a head, who would be the one primarily tasked together with the elimination of Marko and Alana. We also meet two in the bounty hunters that contain are in antique dealer war to have the fugitives, The Will and The Stalk. The Stalk is often a somewhat frightening-looking spider-like alien who carries weapons in all of the of her additional appendages, and The Will is humanoid, but has with him what could possibly be one of my personal favorite characters EVER and that will be the character of Lying Cat, who is usually a talking cat that could tell when someone is lying. Also characters in themselves are a legendary list of terrifying killers called The Horrors, which, like several characters on this book aren’t quite what they have to seem.

Alana is far more prone to using violent way to protect her husband and baby, but Marko is hesitant, even though he has a sword chained inside its sheath which he has vowed to not ever unsheath. Prince Robot IV is a lot less than pleased using the notion of needing to track this fugitive couple down, feeling it’s beneath his aristocratic sensibilities. The Stalk and The Will have a romantic/sexual past but they are both fearsome, amoral killers, or jointly might think, until The Will visits the pleasure planet of Sextillion and his awesome unethical code is put for the test.

Vaughan’s writing is just as strong and natural because it is ever been, and that he uses a lots of English-Speaking slang, because… you will want to? Whatever language these different races may very well be speaking to the other is still likely to be translated to the language, and Vaughan, regardless of anything else, is masterful for the art of language. Each issue moves along with an incredibly even pace, enabling moments of great suspense and violence, but also making it possible for great humor, character beats and texture on the worlds around them. If there is really a science fiction-fantasy comic available that is so good at creating its universe, I have yet to learn it.

Fiona Staples’ art is a superb balance of extreme detail to abstract lines and shading. It is just the feel that the ebook demands, just as soon as again, Vaughan finds the perfect person for example his work. Her amazeballs efforts are absolutely worthy of this book and is particularly absolutely considered one of those artists that demands following in this particular and other titles.

The thing until this book would bring up for a lot of is an age-old argument about Art vs. Pornography. The book in its entirety is certainly not with the kiddies, but it is hardly filled with sexual activity. However, there is often a book on this collection that broaches that argument as it does take place on our planet of Sextillion and as The Will goes walking down its streets, there are various rather explicit sexual acts taking place in the background. The general technique of defining “pornography” is showing sexual acts that should titillate or build a general state of sexual arousal. That is greatly not the case here. This is not a comic that’s somehow built to sexually excite its readers, but I can see right now perhaps a less open-minded reader or someone who’s going to be new to reading mature-themed comics to be a more than a little taken aback by some of the people panels. But really, it’s parsed right down to no more than couple of panels. It’s not gratuitous this is not within your face, but it is there, so new readers may like to be aware. That’s all I really needed to say this.

When all of it boils into how this book is and just how it makes you’re feeling, it becomes an beautiful and massively entertaining book that keeps you invested to all of its characters, generates a incredibly rich universe of those characters to appear in, never isn’t able to please the attention or the intellect, and extremely, like Hazel, SAGA is one thing of a small miracle.